Dr. Rochelle Walensky on making health care policy under fire
b'Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who served as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023, calls the job \\u201cprobably the hardest thing I will ever do.\\u201d But she also calls it \\u201cthe honor of a lifetime.\\u201d When she was appointed by President Biden as the CDC\\u2019s 19th director, she was already used to politicized health care issues, having spent her formative years as a physician working on HIV and AIDS. But COVID thrust her into an unprecedented spotlight, forcing her to lead a demoralized agency through the challenges of implementing policy and informing the public while navigating a highly polarized and often toxic public sphere and rapidly changing scientific data. Walensky says she learned some hard and valuable lessons during her tenure. After stepping down from the post this summer, Walensky is now a senior fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, studying the topic of women\\u2019s leadership in the health care field. She is also exploring health care policy issues in concurrent fellowships at both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.'